Hurray, an architect challenges us to a more sustainable house for the dollar… he will create it to prove it.

RIPOFF! cough, cough. Yes, that was the comment on the post we made to our Facebook account. Now for the fun!!!!!

Darby invites you to explore, invest, and come have some fun at the events we will be having starting in June. Music events, film festivals, market days for all things salvaged, and much more cool events at Salvagefaire, in Salvage Texas of course. Don’t know where that is…. may need to become a member to find out. hehe.

Tiny Texas HousesShow me what you can build, buy, or create and sell my friend with the opinion that is clearly intended to be negative. Where are you getting 10% return on your investments, assuming you have any? Please show me what you offer that is better and I will help you sell it, not criticize your offer lest your full of crap and have nothing better to put on the table.

Maki Dominguez StambolianI regret my earlier comment, it is far less considerate and appropriate than what I regularly issue, I apologize. As an architect, I can appreciate and marvel at your wonderfully creative and beautiful work, and further applaud your use of re-purposed and recycled materials. As an engineer, I’m often befuddled at the structural design choices that all too often seem to take back seat to aesthetic preference. As a business owner, dedicated to manufacturing Eco- friendly, and super durable structures, and do it inexpensively, I cannot reconcile the cost per Sq. Ft. some of these tiny homes go for.

Maki Dominguez StambolianIt’s why I apologized for my earlier, intemperate remark.
There is an affordability crisis in the new and existing home
Market that is pricing too many out of homeownership. I am not a fan of the tiny home concept, but accept that it has value to a good number of consumers. These homes are whimsical, one of a kind little works of art, and as such have their own niche. My goal is to market solid structures that are meant to last centuries, not decades, require very little in the way of maintenance; while providing exceptional energy efficiency, fire, mold and insect resistance and do it all for under $95 a Sq. Ft. finished.

Tiny Texas HousesMaki Dominguez Stambolian How do you reconcile what architects charge to create glass, block, and steel structures that take no consideration for the environment, sustainability, and use fake measurement systems like LEEDs or Energy Star which are industry tools to force the use of their products. This system virtually neglects to give fair credit to salvage of the property, materials, EMBODIED Energy of past Humans who created the glass with coal pulled from the mines by 12 year olds and blown into bubbles by our forefathers who worked 360 days a year without vacation pay, sick pay, or retirement plans? What of the fossil fuels used to create the good hardware, glass, tubs, and sinks that I reuse that bank more energy before the house is lived in which is not used to create it than the house will use in 100 years of heating, cooling, and maintenance. New homes and structures neglect to calculate that into the equation that neglects the 10-15 year built in obsolescence in materials that force one to replace nearly all things after that. Thus the initial energy costs to create the materials, AC, water heater, fogged up energy efficient vinyl or aluminum windows, etc will all be lost, out side of the calculations used by architects and engineers to determine what the “energy cost to live there is”, rather than the human, fossil fuel, and Earth resources harvested and processed anew. The environmental cost to make the things you use, the due diligence to study and understand that humans need more air than the stupid tiny boxes on wheels they are calling Tiny Houses hold for a nights rest.

Tiny Texas HousesAdd the toxic soup of new materials, from the formaldehyde, Endocrine Disruptive Compounds, plasticizers, acrylic acid from paints, carpet fibers, etc that you and others routinely include into homes and offices without consideration for the health problems they create. I challenge you as a professional to no use low VOC but no VOC. To reach a sustainable materials used level of 75% even, and use thus the materials that were harvested and do not need to be reprocessed, recycled, or processed beyond cleaning up, pulling the nails, and using them again. If and when you do this, I want you to come to the studios and we can have a few discussions online for the world to listen to and debate.

These are important issues that will not be debated in your arena by the industries to blame for the problems we are now having with the health of people, even in the high end houses, due to the chemicals you are all including without consciousness, or else out of negligence, for the proof of the consequences of these chemicals on our bodies is no longer in doubt. How is it that only California forced the removal of engineered flooring that caused leukemia or other cancer in as little as 3 years of living with it? All the other states apparently did not import any of it or the professionals noted it and did not include it in the designs, or …. the building materials industry just hushed it up and ignored the problems in all the other states. These are the issues as I wonder at the price point on a new house versus the value of the health of those who will live in it, not the wealth of those who design, build, and walk away as if they are not responsible for the health issues, financial problems. This leads to the destruction of a child’s health long before they even understand what destroyed their body when their blood brain barrier could not stop the assault of chemicals near the floor of our homes. For this, no price point can be used but what it takes to prevent if from happening.

I ask you, do you not think the immense labor should be paid for well, to take apart a house, barn, or building, hard sweaty dirty work? Do you think your time and knowledge is worth so much per hour but those who would create such labor intensive structures sustainably, without the built in obsolescence, and to do so for a price comparable to sheetrock houses. Incidentally you must realize that most sheetrock contain over 45% toxic fly ash from chimneys that was diluted with Gypsum, sandwiched with Black Industrial Mold Spores between paper that when wetted, spawns one of the most toxic molds on Earth. Your industry continue to use and design with these materials which go up in minutes compared to hours of labor and somehow determine that this is to much to pay for such quality. I am not stumped or surprised for this is what the colleges are paid to indoctrinate you with while there, sponsored by the building industry, CADD software industry, etc. Your profession, like Attorneys, breeds the perpetuation of this bad behavior and whilst only a few have taken the path to true sustainable building, designing with the Venturi effect for cooling, and many other aspects that make it possible to live off grid for the most part, the bulk of the building industry has not taken that path. Thanks for the inspiration to clarify these things as they need to be in a blog and then put out there for the world to compare our perspectives for that is the real issue we face. The system in place versus the alternatives which will put most of that system out of business.

Tiny Texas HousesFinally, with 92,000,000 people out of work, this is a solution based building ethos that uses human energy to harvest the products that are presently going into the landfills which in turn are filling up. The new advent of sheetrock causing Hydrogen Sulfide gas to come up out of landfills is forcing them to stop taking sheetrock in which is being used to build 450,000 new houses this year thanks to your fellow architects, engineers, and builders in the industry that promote its use instead of Magnesium Oxide options.

IF we converted 25% of the 50% of our landfills that are presently building materials being thrown away as we dismantle the industrial age structures, the family farms, and the small towns that are dying for lack of opportunity and jobs, we could build a new generation from this “Waste” and create jobs, careers, and housing instead of big piles of toxic waste and good building materials mixed together forever. This change in our building paradigm would unleash billions of dollars in local resources directly into the hands of the people who can use them to create houses, buildings, barns, and more without importing anything, cutting down trees, or even making glass or most of the hardware we will need.

The salvation of property, people, and towns is possible by simply adding this component and opening the door to using salvaged materials again. IF we add the incentives that what ever portion of a new house is built from salvage it will not be taxed for the life of the house, we would have an industry that would thrive off from the demand for

salvage miners,

salvage builders, and all the other fields that go with it from

salvage brokering,

warehousing,

transport, and

exports.

We have the largest standing Virgin Forest in the world hidden in the USA awaiting harvest… hidden in the form of buildings, barns and houses. If you can top the value that I have hidden and the fact that the only cost is nails, screws, house wrap, insulation, and minimal wiring and plumbing to create houses that will last for a century or more.

No imports, cheap out of country labor, no architects, engineers, or even many builders as we know them now, for they would all be out of business if people know how unhealthy the housing is these days.

Truly, if you can top this, I will sing your song with you and hope that you sing mine, for it is by uniting that we will see change, not by ignoring me and others who call out our Song of Salvage to plant the seeds of change into the society that thinks that quality is too expensive and how Cheap should always be the way we value our possessions.

That was the comment left by someone for the Facebook page where we posted the Blue Moon up for sale and leaseback. The Blue Moon was one of our earliest houses I used as prototypes for the later houses that became most popular. This, with other examples of 95% Pure Salvage building, will be kept as sort of a living museum that others will be able to stay in overnight and experience a piece of the Tiny Organic Houses phenomena. This is one of understanding what we can do with our imagination and human energy, not buy. It is about joining elders and youngers together so as to teach them the life skills they would need if they had to survive without imports, cheap labor, or resources at Walmart and big box stores. It is not a price point issue unless there is a debate about the value of a craftsman’s time versus a drone on an assembly line who cares not what he does, but how much he gets paid alone.

While houses on wheels with all new materials are selling for $90,000 and are smaller than this house, have 1/4 as much real wood, and are full of toxins, this example of sustainable building is meant to show we can do better and for much less. Is this not affordable? It is if you put the human energy into salvaging the materials, building the house, and perhaps making a great career out of doing so for the rest of your life.

Still some have differing opinions and it is good to get them out there for the public. So here goes a bit of a conversation with a professional architect who is doing something like this, still a mystery, and we challenge him to show us what he can do sustainably, toxin free, and with a matching quality. I hope we get to see the results as he manifest them. For now, please join me in the fun of a debate with the new face for the industry who has volunteered to show us what his profession can do.

The color is so much richer with the oil and you can see how it brings out the blue and green in the porch floor too.

Helen’s Heaven Porch posts are Blue Cedar can you see.

The Gingered Swan gets to view the Sunset from its Balcony and hear the songbirds sings in Morn. At night it has the choruses of tree and pond frogs conversing with crickets and nightlife.

Tiny Texas HousesShow me what you can build, buy, or create and sell my friends, regardless of whether your opinion of what I do is clearly intended to be negative. Where are you getting 10% return on your investments that I offer those who support our mission by owning one for us to share with others? Is part of the deal to match my offer I made for a few of my early houses. That is assuming you have any rather than just challenging being able to build better for less? Please show me what you offer that is better and I will help you sell it, not criticize your offer lest your full of crap and have nothing better to put on the table. What I want to see as many good ideas as possible being offered once people wake up to the questioning of the system that keeps the blinders on the end users, as well as most of the participants along the way who keep them willingly, for taking them off means having to change. If we contend with all the issues involved and then grade the results thusly weighed, I am confident no one will lose out on the time it takes to follow the debate and see the results.

This challenge goes for the industry of architects, builders, universities claiming Greeness, and materials manufacturers as a whole for they are all complicit in the perpetuation of the problems while denying and ignoring the evidence that we have serious problems in housing in America and is not the price point being to high, but people wanting more healthy space than they can afford and their being willing to sacrifice their health, because they are ignorant that it is one of the cost factors in owning a house. How much is your good health worth compared to the stress and issues of owning an American Dream McMansion?

Thank you for reading, sharing, and getting others to question what is right in this day of advertising without any obligation to tell the whole truth.

Copyright 2017 Salvage Texas LLC. - All Rights Reserved. If you would like to use photographs of any of our houses in your blog, article or publication, please email us for permission first. We simply require full attribution and a link to our website in return for usage. We are sorry, we don't allow usage of photos of our houses on websites selling competitor's house plans or tiny house construction.